Morgan Sindall Property Services has been awarded five-year repairs and maintenance deal covering St Albans City and District Council’s 4,800 homes. The contract will start from April with an option to extend it for a further 10 years. Its value over the full 15 years will be in the region of £90m.
The contract includes repairs and planned maintenance works as well as the management of empty properties and Council-owned garages. MSPS will also provide an out-of-hours emergency response service to deal with major incidents such as a flood.
Among other improvements, tenants will be able to choose a convenient date and time for a repair visit. Morgan Sindall’s works and asset management system MSi has smart scheduling capabilities and can work out the most efficient options based on time, location and the right trade needed for the job. An innovation set to be introduced later this year will enable tenants to track the progress of an enquiry online.
Council officers began a review of the service 18 months ago and decided to opt for an innovative price-per-property contract.
This means that the Council will no longer be charged a fee for each time a repair is carried out. Instead, it will pay a fixed price for each property every year, giving the Council certainty over the cost of repair bills, making it easier to plan ahead.
Around 12,000 repairs are carried out every year at individual properties and communal areas.
Morgan Sindall will also implement its new customer engagement platform, which will provide crucial information about performance, productivity and customer satisfaction.
Councillor Brian Ellis, Portfolio Holder for Housing and Inclusion, said: “This is a multi-million pound contract, one of the biggest and most important that the Council awards. Tenants will see a marked improvement in the service. For example, they will be able to report any concerns immediately on their mobile phone and choose the date of a visit. We will also be able to look ahead and make decisions while knowing exactly what our budget for repair and maintenance needs to be.
“Morgan Sindall is a large construction and regeneration group that already has good working relations with the Council. Another Morgan Sindall company is currently completing, as our contractor, a small housing estate of ten new properties on the site of the former St Albans Museum. As our new repairs and maintenance contractor, their experience and expertise should result in some financial savings for the Council and a better service for our tenants.”
Alan Hayward, Managing Director of Morgan Sindall Property Services, commented: “We are very pleased to have won this contract and look forward to working with St Albans City and District Council and their residents in the years ahead. I am confident that we are equipped to provide an outstanding repairs and maintenance service, using our technology platform and data to help inform planned investment decisions and deliver on our social value commitments that will open up numerous training and employment opportunities for local people.”
